September, and money - both gone!

September - Week One - with rapidly fading memories of lazy summer days, and a mad, final dash around Staples, I am $200 poorer.  This sets the scene for the whole month.


We buy out half the store so that the girls can haul enormous and overweight backpacks to school, and then fret over the colour of the locker they will be allocated.  Sorry Sir, purple just isn't working for me this year.  And as the innumerate parent, I don't even know what all the symbols of the fancy new calculator mean.  

$270 on school bus passes.  And more dollars on new clothes.

It is exciting to return to school, meet up with old friends and show off sparkly new t-shirts.  Normality and routine will return. Allegedly.

Classy photo above, eh?  What do you mean, you have no idea what it is .... The Josh Groban concert was fabulous. What a lovely guy - amusing, self-deprecating and a bit of a good voice too.  Happy 18th wedding anniversary to us. 

Week Two - Children go back to school, and herein begins the daily madness of packed lunches, signing an abundance of school forms, writing random cheques for I don't know what, and washing the 'right' pair of jeans for tomorrow.  God forbid one would have to wear the wrong pair of jeans.  

Actually, let me backtrack slightly.  Waking children and attempting to dig them from their pits at 7am is a feat in itself.  Not attractive, that's all I'm saying. But they have not missed the bus so far, so that is a mammoth achievement. 

Oh, and mum, I need new shoes too.  It transpires that Daughter Number One has spent the last three months in one pair of flip flops and I hadn't noticed that she really had no other footwear that actually fits her.  Mmm, gonna need to sort that out before the first (shhhhh, say it really quietly now) snow falls.

Spectacular September sun-rises grace me on my journey to work, and all is calm for at least 30 minutes of commuting each day.

Week Two continued - the Weekend - more money.  The dance shop.  Holy Moly.  $340 later, and my two offspring are suitably kitted out in new leotards, miscelleneous dance shoes and other random but essential items.  What is it with kids anyway?  Why do they have to keep growing?  

In the meantime, ballet shoes have to be ordered in especially.  Apparently there is not much call for girls dance shoes in a size 11.  Maybe we should go to Mountain Equipment Co-Op and buy some canoes instead! 

That's in addition to the regular Dance Fees, which would bankrupt a small nation.  Just Say No.   

I spend two days in my garden - sorting, clearing, tidying and planting some spare perennials that a lovely guy from work donated to a good cause, ie, me!   Very exciting.  OK, exciting for me - not so much for anyone else.

Week Two continues.  Dad goes on a course for work, I return to choir and realises just how unfit my lungs really are.  I also commence a new college class because it seemed like a good idea at the time, and need to spend $140 on one text book.  All this somehow fits around taxi-ing children (ours and other peoples) back and forth to classes.  

The dogs go into a sulk.  Why are we being left alone in this house all day by ourselves?  I think we'll chew some sandals, this new cushion, and then we will just pee on the door mat in protest.   Hummmmph. (or Woooofph).

Week Three - hurray - children have managed two whole weeks, and Daughter Number One has not broken a bone, twisted or pulled anything and is still upright and in one piece.  This is indeed a miracle.  Both children return to dance classes and are walking like John Wayne as the muscles in their bodies go into shock and spasm.  But we have new dance teachers this year who are both "cool" and "terrifying" at the same time.

Ah ha but wait.  Week Three, part deux.  


The annual and inevitable ritual called "The-swapping-of-bugs-and-germs" has commenced.  

I hereby re-name the last week of September as Sick Week.  

Teachers get an early moment of relief because half the class calls in sick as some mutating, viral thingy circulates through the whole school, wiping out 50% of children for at least a couple of days.

And I hereby also declare that all employers should just give parents an extra week off at the end of September to attend to fevered brows, snotty noses and dirty toilet bowls (sorry - is that too much information?).  It would make processing annual leave so much simpler.  Let's just say this week has been stressful.


Week four - Repeat, with extra germs.

At least the weather has been kind, with continuing warm sunny days, beautiful skies when you have no camera to hand, and the bonus of no mosquitoes.

And suddenly it is October, and I'm exhausted. And skint. How are you?!